Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people were waiting to be assessed for pension credit on 29 July 2024.

As of 29^th July, there were 33,883 claims outstanding and as of 28^th October, there were 76,569 claims outstanding.

Since the announcement to means test Winter Fuel payments, to date we have increased the resource in Pension Credit claims by around five hundred more staff through a combination of internal redeployments, use of external providers and external recruitment. This is in line with the overall resourcing plan for Pension Credit claims and Winter Fuel payments.

Please note, the claims outstanding figures do not include Advanced claims. This data is sourced from the Pension Credit system and for internal departmental use only. As such, they have not been quality assured to the same extent as Official Statistics.